Monday, December 5, 2016

Author and friend Ryan Sprague just published a book of UFO accounts. It's titled Somewhere in the Skies, and subtitled A Human Approach to an Alien Phenomenon. The focus of his research has been the very personal side of these complex experiences. The book is set up as a series of short stories, each account digs into the emotional side of this enigma.

I play a small role in this book. Ryan and I had met a few times over the years, either at the UFO Congress in Arizona, or in the streets of Greenwich Village in New York. I was always struck by just how earnest and open he was. I also sensed he was approaching the bigger mystery not as a pragmatic researcher, but more as an artist. This is something I relate to strongly.

We exchanged a few emails in and created a short interview. I know what it means to try to try and promote a book, and this one is highly recommended. Ryan reads the opening chapter of the book in an audio excerpt, linked HERE.

Mike Clelland:I remember we had a conversation while you were working on the book. You mentioned some advice, your publisher, Richard Dolan had given you. If I remember correctly, he said don't write the introduction until you've finished the book. Meaning your ideas will change during the project. What did you think you were getting into in the onset—and what changed along the way?

Ryan Sprague: When I first wrote my initial introduction, I came to realize that I was already inducing pre-conceived notions into the main body of research. I was subconsciously creating a bias towards certain aspects of these phenomena by constructing limitations from the onset. It was naive, and it was apparent. So I decided that I would leave writing the introduction until the very last draft of the manuscript. What lessons had I learned in the two years of interviews and research, and I could I then apply those to the first words of the book that anyone would read? What I thought was going to be a rather straight-forward book of witness testimony and accounts soon turned into a much more poignant and deeply personal journey through the hearts and minds of so many people having extraordinary experiences.

MC: You must have talked to a fair number of people at this point. Do you have any sort of internal lie detector? I mean, some things sound extremely strange. Do you trust everything in the book?

RS: I stand by every story told in this book. After having interviewed hundreds of individuals, I must admit that it was both daunting, frustrating and disenchanting at times. But as I navigated through and endless maze of stories, I began to find very compelling and genuine people who had absolutely no reason to make these stories up. There was no financial gain. No book or movie deals to be had. These were people with friends, family, and communities who believed them, supported them, and listened to them. Whatever may have happened, they firmly believed it to be true, and it impacted their lives in countless ways. And those few dozen stories I tell in the book are most definitely the ones I feel in my heart or hearts are authentic and worth continued exploration.

MC: You have documented some things that have a depth that goes beyond just a scary encounter. People described spiritual aspects, an how things seemed connected to their own soul. Here is a quote from Chapter 12.

“Our eyes, minds, and souls are being opened,”

Patty told me.

You realize some researchers out there are repelled by this side of the phenomenon. What is your impression with these spiritual aspects of the stories?

RS: The spiritual aspect is something I wasn't expecting when I first started my research. I always looked at this phenomenon from two sides; Scientific and Philosophical. So when I started noticing a healthy amount of these individuals viewing their experiences this way, I knew I had to at least keep an open mind and look into it.

What I found most interesting is that some were very spiritual and/or religious before their experience, and this was the lens in which they perceived what had happened. Others, who had no previous religious beliefs began to believe in a higher power thereafter. There have been so many reports throughout history of aerial objects piercing the skies, and many times these were viewed as miracles. Could some of UFO reports or abduction experiences be a divine intervention of sorts? I can't say, but for those who choose to see it that way, I would never fault them. It only opens the doors of possibility with what we may be dealing with. Or perhaps only a fraction of what we're dealing with.

Monday, November 28, 2016

Whenever I receive an email of an unusual owl account, I'll create a document with the text. Then I continue adding to it with each new email reply. This system helps keep my ever growing flood of reports a bit more organized.

The image above shows the word count for a document I added to this morning. I pay attention to these small number synchronicities, although I am not sure what it truly means.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

I will be one of the presenters in the upcoming conference in Eureka Springs Arkansas. This will be the 30th year of this event. The conference was started by the late Dolores Cannon, and her daughters now run this annual event.

Friday, November 25, 2016

A short conversation, in two parts, between two extraordinary thinkers, Terence McKenna and Kenneth Ring. The book The Omega Project was written by Ring, and in it he explores the relationship between the UFO phenomenon and the Near Death Experience. This video was created shot on location in Prague, Czechoslovakia during the International Transpersonal Conference in June 1992, known at Prague Gnosis.

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This was initially posted her back on January 14 of 2014 (on my mom's birthday!) I have since added the audio as an MP3 below. Sadly, the sound quality is poor but if you pay attention, you can still hear all of it.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

My friend—I mean—mate, Peter Maxwell Slattery just shared a tidy video post about his owl experiences. A nice set of personal experiences with owls and the UFO presence. And, he gives a wonderful shout-out for my book (Thanks mate!)

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

I’ve recently purchased two of Whitley Strieber’s books on Kindle, Transformation (1988) and The Communion Letters (1997). I already had both of these in their paper versions, and I read each of them shortly after their publication.

author and experiencer

Having these in a digital format allows for easy word searches, and the word I looked up was owl. I expected owl stories to be peppered throughout these books, but I was impressed at the insights offered by Whitley. What he says is, in many ways, what I have worked so hard to say in my own book. Yet what he has written is poetic, perceptive and right to the point.

Now I am fully aware that I read these books with great care, this includes all the stuff about owls, and decades later I wrote my own book with a similar flavor to my speculation. I honestly didn’t remember any of the specifics when rereading these excerpts now. Yet it seems fair to say that I absorbed these ideas during my initial reading. This may have sat in my mind in some semi-dormant way, quietly informing me during my years owl research.

In retrospect, I am glad I didn’t find these quotes during the writing process of The Messengers. I feel I would have leaned on these ideas like a crutch. Whitley and Anne are quoted extensively in my book, and I would have added some of these excerpts had I have seen them. Curiously, both books were on my shelf during the writing process, yet I never opened them, though I sure opened Communion (1987).

This blog will now serve as a platform for these powerful quotes about owls and their connection to the UFO experience.

Monday, October 31, 2016

The first two episodes of People of Earth will premiere tonight (yes, Halloween). This is a comedy about an investigative journalist Ozzie Graham (Wyatt Cenac) who writes about a UFO experiencer support group only to realize he himself has had his own contact experiences. The script writers have obviously mined the available literature. Someone did their homework and managed to squeeze a lot of familiar stuff into this pilot episode.

It’s more than a bit disturbing to see something I take very seriously played for laughs. I know a lot of people (including myself) who’ve sat in a support circle just like what is portrayed on the show. There can be emotional trauma and suffering, more human drama than comedy. Not sure what to think after just the first show. That said, I kinda liked some of what I saw, yet I suspect later episodes will cross the line into exploitation.

Also of note, the fictional UFO journalist Ozzie Graham has a curiously similar name to real life UFO journalist Robbie Graham.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

My friend Jack had a remarkable experience just as he was on the last few pages of my book The Messengers.

He sent me this message on the evening of Sept 14:

Earlier tonight I asked and wished I would see an owl while at work. Within minutes of doing so I saw a strange looking light in the sky, I looked away for less than a second and it was gone!

We spoke shortly after the experience and he described seeing a stationary lighted “dash” just sitting in the sky. This was near an airport, and his first thought was it might be a plane, but right in that moment he realized it wasn’t like any aircraft he had ever seen. He watched this glowing object for about 10 seconds before it vanished.

Jack messaged his partner Suzanne moments after the sighting, and that text is time stamped 6:49 p.m. And he messaged me at 10:48 p.m., right when he finished the book.

During our conversations and messaging, Jack used the words wishing, asking, hoping, and expecting when describing his desire to see an owl.

Jack wrote: “I was scanning light posts and building roof tops half expecting to eye one. The sky was a very dark blue, not yet black. As I turned the corner I gave up on the notion [of seeing an owl] and suddenly saw the light.”

He described it as a "dash" but felt it was more, "like a tear in the sky... like if you had a dark piece of fabric with a tear in it with a bright flash light behind it."

Jack said, “I was on the last few pages [of your book] when I saw it. This sighting happened just moments after asking to see an owl.”

This is remarkable to me. Jack was wishing he would see an owl, and seconds later he saw a UFO instead, and just as he was finishing my book.

Jack is even in the book a few times! One amazing event was that we both had a very similar grizzly bear dream on the same night (linked HERE).

I have a handful of accounts from people who had the reverse experience, having wished to see a UFO and then seeing an owl instead. I even have a few where people heard an owl hooting, and they saw a UFO when they looked in the direction of the sound. I've also had a lot of accounts of people seeing an owl while reading the book or listening to my recorded voice talking about owls. I even have one account of a guy seeing an owl fly by his windshield while driving, then moments later seeing a saucer shaped craft, all while listening to my voice talking about owls and UFOs.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Cool owl imagery in this 186 cm x 162 cm tempera on wood painting. The owl is looking away from the transcendent moment as St Francis gets zapped by the floating apparition of Christ on the cross. There is something so trippy about this painting. I mean, there are thin little laser beams shooting off a glowing crucified Jesus. And what is that red blob at the base of the floating cross? It looks like the Talaria, the winged sandals of the Greek messenger god Hermes (just a guess).

St Francis was the patron saint of animals, and depictions of him are often full of animals, yet this owl seems to be the only animal featured prominently. There are two horses in the background.

Friday, September 23, 2016

I have done nearly 30 audio interviews since The Messengers was published last winter. It's hard not to simply go on auto-pilot and just tell the same stories over and over. Most of these have gone very well, and a few seemed to rise above the others. Jim Perry's Euphomet is one of those that dug a little deeper than most. The interview begins at the 10 minute mark. This interview is recommended.

Sunday, September 18, 2016

This video shows an unusual glowing dot in the sky, while the audio catches a hooting owl. Listen carefully at the 00.53 and 00.58 mark. You can clearly hear the high pitched call of a tawney owl. Yes, I realize that this is a very common bird in the British Isles, but gee-whiz...

Let me say this very clearly...

This is an owl and UFO

seen and heard at the same moment!

The UK tabloid, The Mirror, has a short article on a man who captured unusual video footage near his home on Monday September 12. No mention of the owl.

The 32-year-old man, who wished to remain anonymous, said he kept noticing the UFOs as he walked his dog through the hills near Great Shefford in Berkshire.

On Monday he decided to take a camera with him to capture the mysterious objects in a bid to discover what they were.

But after less than two minutes of filming the UFOs his camera suddenly died - despite being fully charged.

The video below features the call of a tawny owl for comparison, alas, without any UFOs.

You can hear this owl, and another in the distance, exchanging calls

If you ask a child in America to make the sound of an owl, they’ll say, “Hooo-Hooo!” Ask a child in England the same question and they’ll say, “Twit-Twooo!” This discrepancy is because the both the great gray and great horned owls make a low haunting hooting call, but neither are in Europe. The most iconic owl in the British Isles is the tawny owl, and it makes a staggered high pitched flute like call that sounds a bit like twit-twoo. Only a few of the largest owls actually hoot, all the rest make different sounds, often quite screechy. This is the kind of stuff you learn when immersed in owl research.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Whitely Strieber and I spoke in a recorded interview recently, and it has just been posted on his site. This is a very powerful and emotional discussion where both of us really lay ourselves bare. The interview is focused on my hypnosis session from back in 2014 with therapist Lorraine Flaherty, which was a past life regression with the goal of addressing my history of clinical depression. Only at the end did we touch on the UFO issues.

This was an extremely important set of events for me, starting with Lorraine's session and then discussing it with Whitley two years later. It was deeply moving and inspiring, and it gives me the faith to keep pressing onward along this path.

In part TWO Whitley interviews Lorraine Flaherty to discuss her research and past life work. Linked HERE.

a powerful conversation

The Dreamland interview is linked HERE. This session was covered in a blog post linked HERE. The transcript and audio is posted HERE. Part TWO where Whitley interviews Lorraine is linked HERE.

The audio recording of the session:

From the Dreamland site:Friday September 16, 2016

Intense New Close Encounter Breakthrough, Part 1

Mike is among the most articulate of witnesses, and now he returns with the single most profound, powerful and incisive discussion of close encounter that we have ever produced. You will never have heard anything like this unforgettable journey into the truth about the experience, its connection to so many other occult experiences, and its immense power to change not only witnesses, but also people who explore it with an open mind.

Why do so many close encounter witnesses find themselves challenged to the core of their beings, even, as both Mike and Whitley know all too well, to the point of suicide?
This will open your heart and change your mind, leaving you empowered in a completely new way, with new understanding.

Next week, Whitley will continue the discussion by turning to the therapist who was responsible for the hypnosis session that led to this interview, Lorraine Flaherty.

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Lorraine Flaherty is a past-life hypnotherapist based out of the UK. She was one of the speakers at the conference in Leeds, England. This was an event where I was also a speaker.

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Mac Tonnies / audio interviews

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first-person blogs from CONTACTEES

There is something happening, there are a LOT of people who claim the abduction phenomenon, or UFO contact, who are sharing their first person experiences on-line.

Mac Tonnies talks about my blog:

...a fascinating new blog delving into his experiences with strangeness and synchronicity. Mike's humility and painterly attention to detail are decided assets in a world where the very term "paranormal" has become associated with excessive credulity.

tiny clues

Events can be hard to recall. Especially when these memories seem to stretch my psyche in ways that can be distressing. If these memories and events are just tiny clues, what do they point to?

I feel strongly that something is going on. But what that might be, seems beyond my ability to solve.

Mike Clelland

2009

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Now I Know

my confirmation event

blogging and the self

It's impossible to create a linear narrative on a blog. These postings should come in a nice tidy and logical order, but they don't. If this stuff seems interesting, you might need to dig around a little bit. The puzzle pieces are all mixed up - even to me.

~ Mike Clelland, 2009

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The Secret Sun

Christopher Knowles sez, "Keep a dream log and sync log, starting today. Keep track of your dreams and the synchronicities you observe or experience. And then see if by the end of the year the two logs haven't become one." Click on his image to visit his Jung influenced insights into pop culture.